Excelsior Correspondent
Jammu, Apr 21: One more Pay parity anomaly has been resolved today. The announcement was made by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in Army Commanders conference.
The issue dates back to 14 Feb 2019 Pulwama incident. Post this incident on 22 Feb 2019 the Risk and Hardship allowance in hinterlands and other locations were revised upwards. Thereby there was a situation where in the CAPF were drawing higher rates of allowance than the Armed forces personnel in the same location. This created the anomaly.
Accordingly, a Committee was formed in March 2019 to examine the issue. Meanwhile, DMA was formed and another Committee in March 2020 headed by CISC was tasked to resolve the issue. Thereafter number of meetings, discussions and deliberations were undertaken and finally present CNS then CISC before moving as FoC -in C the report was submitted in Jan 2021 and approved by Rajnath Singh.
For the first time, a common Govt letter on Risk & Hardship (R&H) Allowance for the Armed forces personnel has been issued by MoD/DMA.
The R&H allowance has also been made admissible to NCC units, Training Centres, BRO, MES and other static units at one level lower as admissible to the combatant troops.
40% of the personnel posted to SFC will be paid R&H allowance at R2H2 cell which is Rs 10,500/- for officers and Rs 6,000/- for JCOs/ Other Ranks.
In case, if there is any reduction in the revised allowance in any particular location than the existing allowance would continue.
Inadvertently, if any location has been left out in the annexure the existing allowance would continue
The revised rates are applicable with retrospective effect from February 22, 2019.